Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/01/why-you-couldnt-quit-faceboo.html
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I quit Facebook in December 2017 after…at least 7 years of having an account set up. Toward the end I kept the personal account around more since I had to due to their policy of business Facebook accounts requiring personal accounts. Once I closed my toy store down, I scuttled Facebook and everyone I had connections with on that. I had a final post saying how people could reach me then bounced. There hasn’t been a day where I wanted to go back, more so now after the recent events. Looking back on it, that site was a complete waste of time and massive gobbler of said time. My wife has been really bitten, though, by the FB bug. I can’t see her quitting at any point - when she gets home from work, she’ll spend a good hour or more flicking through the site, then refresh and start flicking again, zombied out.
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JHC quit already. Develop and maintain relationships the way it’s been done for thousands of years.
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I’m fine with technology performing work for us, including emotional labour. That’s a fundamental purpose of technology. The problem with Facebook is the particular price it’s asked us to pay and its extreme irresponsibility in collecting it in the context of the monopsony it’s created for selling that labour.
Which is to say, if you’re sophisticated about techology or privacy or security or economics then quit Facebook (Twitter, too, while you’re at it). It’ll be hard and inconvenient and lots of unsophisticated people will call it “inconsiderate”, but that’s the price we have to pay if we want better tech to do our labour for us without throwing off toxic externalities.
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Quit again. First time in 2011.
Only reason I came back was the events. Stayed to keep in touch with people.
If another one comes along that has friends and family on it, I’ll use that instead.
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I can’t quit. I never signed up.
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Thanks Rob Beschizza (and by extension, Sarah Jeong of the Verge). The article neatly puts into focus the problems I’ve struggled with in terms of quitting Facebook; the darn thing does do a lot of work for me, and I’m old enough that I still mail cards, knock on doors and keep up an address book (both paper and electronic). It seemed normal when there was nothing better, and now that I know there is something better, I can’t go back 
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The article is about why this attitude isn’t making a difference. You should read it!
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We live in the age of the dawning New Aesthetic. Even if we quit Facebook, we will sign up again in the future. The digital socializing structures that increasingly weave their way into our existences are so pervasive that they’re becoming impossible to avoid except, at the most, temporarily.
I never felt so lucky to be the kind of person who already knew how to live in deep isolation and with crushing social anxiety.
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I never joined. And I live a full, rich life.
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Social rituals can be had without a digital construct is all I’m saying. We survived before FB and we will survive without. If we choose too.
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@beschizza Most people wont notice it but I love the subtle work you did on that Zuck gif. Almost makes him seem alive.
Edit: It actually is animated! And i thought i was just being witty!
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Reminds me of a line from Frasier:
“Golden Acres. We care, so you don’t have to.”
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Apathy is your best friend.
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If we choose to is key here.
I can choose to, in the same way I can avoid using computers, having a phone line, and socialize only in person.
But expecting the rest of the world to do so is crazy. Not having a FB account, and expecting the rest of the world to go out of its way to cater to your particular Luddite ways is an act of entitlement and will be treated as much.
Disclosure: I’ve never had an FB account. But I understand and expect that I am choosing to cut myself out of one of my friend’s main channel for interaction, same as if I deliberately chose not to have an email account 20 years ago or a phone number 50 years ago.
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No, how about somebody identify (or come up with) an alternative that doesn’t blow hot meaty chunks, and everybody get the fuck onto said alternative, FFS.
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Think about before FB, it’s not so hard. The alternative is real life.
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This is an interesting perspective. I deactivated my account years ago and recently deleted it. The people that matter to me are a phone call or text away.
However if Facebook could legitimately fix the privacy issues perhaps i might consider using it as a friends/family connection tool. Certainly not for seeing what my cousin had for breakfast or chasing likes.
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Not really, because FB does stuff that didn’t happen in real life, not for most of us.
Imagine it did what it said on the tin without being incredibly shit at the same time, and it’d deserve as much love as Wiki.
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